Snowed In
by Cpt. Ritter
Summary: John and Teyla crash land on a snowy planet and have to wait for rescue.


_A/N: Response to Doxymom's fic challenge on Gateworld. "Shep and Teyla get snowed in, in a powerless puddle jumper on an alien planet."_

_Time 1630_

Teyla had never seen snow before, that was surprising to him. So he'd volunteered to take her to a barren planet they'd recently discovered, a planet that was covered in snow. Heck, he'd even convinced Elizabeth to lone him a puddle jumper for the trip. Maybe it had been the puppy dog eyes look he'd given her as she tried to protest.

Of course all that was a mute point. The jumper had simply stopped working as they had been flying over a mountain. Now they were alone, and the jumper refused to start up. John looked around the jumper again. If Rodney was here, then they'd have this fixed in no time, but Rodney wasn't and they weren't due back for another twelve hours.

What concerned him wasn't the food or water, they had plenty of that, it was the cold. He'd kept the rear hatch closed to preserve what heat they had left, but he could already feel it getting cold. It wasn't like his jacket was helping any.

The expedition jackets were thin, very thin. He'd been lucky in the crash, but Teyla hadn't. She'd been through from her seat and against the wall. She hadn't broken any bones, but several deep gashes had exhausted almost all of their medical supplies. She was laying on the floor in the rear of the jumper, cuddled between two thermal blankets, her head resting on her jacket.

He stepped around her and pulled out the emergency transmitter from the supplies kit. If they'd been closer to the gate, he would've tried to leg it, but the mountain wasn't exactly climbable. He instead focused on making sure they had a distress beacon up.

He quickly breezed through the manual, looking for the one piece of information he needed-How long it would last? He found it. The batteries were rated to last for 48 hours, which was more than enough time. He set it up in the cockpit, giving Teyla plenty of room in the back and then turned it on.

"Now we wait." He said to himself.

"How long until we are late?" Teyla asked, her voice quiet.

"Another twelve hours." John moaned. He turned around to look at her. "You okay?"

"For now." Teyla muttered.

"You doing what I told you to?" He asked. He was referring to how he'd told her to draw the blanket close, keeping a near airtight seal around her.

She nodded. "I can feel the cold."  
John crossed his arms across his chest. "Yeah, so can I." For now though, it was bearable. He knew it was going to get much worse.

_Time 1930_

Knowing truly how cold it was gave him some solace that he'd made the right choice in keeping the jumper air tight. He'd made a two observations. The first was that the air scrubbers seemed to function of their own power, or didn't require the main power unit. The second was that flashlights made horrible illumination.

They'd both eaten a power bar each, enough to keep them both in good shape. He'd also made Teyla take some emergency antibiotics, to stem off infection of her wounds. It was a necessary precaution. He was sure both of their bodies were unable to effectively fight back disease in this cold.

He rubbed his head as he leaned back in the pilot's chair, staring at the pitch black sky. The one good thing about it was he could see thousands of stars. He was freezing, even with the third thermal blanket wrapped tightly around him.

At first the cold had kept him awake, now there was nothing he wanted to do besides sleep. The cold had brought on fatigue so quickly he was sure he'd been asleep in seconds, but he couldn't. He had to watch for the rescue jumper, be ready to contact it. But then he remembered, Elizabeth wouldn't send it for another nine hours. He had to wait it out.

"John." Teyla's quiet voice from the back roused him out of his stupor.

He turned around and for the second time asked. "You okay?"

"Cold." Teyla replied, her voice still quiet, but in the silence of the jumper, easy to understand.

He stood up. "There's only one thing left to do." He couldn't help but grin as he said it. "Share body heat." His expression sobered quickly. "I'm not going to let you freeze, and to be honest, I can't feel my fingers anymore."

"I do not plan on freezing either." Teyla gave him a sly grin.

John shed the blanket and placed it on top of her, then shed his jacket and laid it as a pillow. Albeit an uncomfortable one, but a pillow nonetheless. He then slid into the nest of blankets. But even then, he could feel the cold.

"Not what I had in mind for a first date." John said, his voice barely above a whisper because of their proximity.

Teyla lay on her side, facing away, and she didn't protest as he wrapped his arms around her. Instead she let herself be draw to him.

As he tucked his head against hers he whispered. "This what you had in mind?"

She turned her head and smiled. "Closer."

John couldn't help but laugh. "Well, what is it that you had in mind?"

Teyla slyly turned away, but he was certain he saw her turn a light shade of crimson. He snuggled in close and closed his eyes. Before he knew it, he was asleep because of the blissful amount of heat generated by the two of them.

_Time 0600_

John awoke to the deepest chill he'd ever felt, the whole jumper felt like the inside of an ice cube. Not that he knew what an ice cube felt like, but he guessed it felt something like he did now. He pulled himself closer to Teyla, her being the only source of any real heat. The blankets were barely retaining body heat, much less enough to keep them warm.

He noticed Teyla was awake and shivering. "How long you been awake?"

"Not more than few minutes." Teyla replied.

"We're overdue, so Elizabeth should've sent someone." He forced himself to breath, even though every breath felt like breathing ice. "Antarctica was never this cold."

There was still no light visible in the night sky and the jumper was still only illuminated by a single emergency light. He could only guess how long the nights would be on this planet. He probably should've found that out before taking Teyla with him.

His radio began squawking. "Sheppard, this is Lorne, do you read?"

John grabbed the radio with his free arm, the other was trapped under Teyla. "Where are you?"

"Hovering just above you. We're ready to take you aboard now."

"Just a second." John turned back to Teyla. "Ready to head back to Atlantis?"

Teyla nodded. "Indeed, when we get back, I have a confession to make."

"You do?" John said, not sounding the least bit surprised. "I look forward to it."

_A/N: FIN, FINE, ENDOS, whatever. Hope you all enjoyed it, just a cute snuggle/fluff fic._


End file.
